A Unified Treatment of Moore's Paradox : Belief, Knowledge, Assertion and Rationality

Since the early twentieth century, Moore's paradox has been a challenge to the philosophical understanding of belief, assertion, knowledge, and rationality. This book offers a compelling study of the paradox by the world's leading authority on the subject, the late John Williams.

A Unified Treatment of Moore''s Paradox is the culmination of a decades-long engagement with Moore''s paradox by the world''s leading authority on the subject, the late John Williams. The book offers a comprehensive account of Moore''s paradox in thought and speech, both in its comissive and omissive forms. Williams argues that Moorean absurdity comes in degrees, and shows that contrary to one tradition in the literature on Moore''s Paradox, we cannot explain Moorean absurdity in speech in terms of Moorean absurdity in thought, but must account for each form of absurdity in its own terms. Williams also explores the extent to which Moore''s paradox may arise for attitudes other than belief, such as desire. Written with Williams'' trademark clarity and wit, the book is packed with arguments bearing on a wide range of topics in epistemology, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind.